Judging Books By Their Covers is a good posting that examines litlove’s reactions to the new cover of Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus….”I find it a little uninspiring and plain”:

This cover is from the 2006 UK Vintage Classic edition. Actually, we don’t dislike it. But, as litlove’s says, “The baroque decoration that is Carter’s prose deserves something more vibrant and enticing.” When we checked Amazon US we found a cover from the other extreme:

Certainly vibrant and enticing but seemed totally out-of-place, even trashy, until we realized that this cover is for a theatrical adaptation of the novel by Tom Morris and Emma Rice. Ok, in that context, change trashy to artsy.

It seems that the image on the cover is a photo still of Natalia Tena performing in the main role of the play. The Guardian provides a review of the play and some insight into Angela Carter from her literary executor.

Something is quite odd with Amazon’s Search Inside the book feature with this title. When you click on the above image for the cover from the adaptation, then you get this illustrated cover from the original 1986 Penguin edition.

Buyers do notice the covers

In the second half of her posting litlove describes the impact that cover art can have on her choice selection:

There have been occasions when I’ve not bought a book because I’ve disliked its cover, and I’ve certainly chosen one book over another on the feeble grounds of aesthetic attractiveness. I’ve been drawn to try new authors because I’ve thought the book appealing.

The final paragraph of her posting talks about her own experience as an author and the cover art for academic books. Interesting stuff, be sure to read it (and be sure to check out the link in the first comment to that post, which will take you to a fascinating site).

Just north of Bogota is the small town of Zipaquira. It’s known mostly for a cathedral that’s carved deep inside a salt mine. The town also played a small role in the development of literature. Gabriel García Márquez received a scholarship to a school in Zipaquira, where he spent more time in the library reading rather in the classroom.

Wandering through the pleasant colonial town we walked by an open doorway where an elderly woman was printing funeral notices, a common custom in small Colombian towns where the notices are pasted on street corners.

Curious, and slightly enchanted by the old tools of the printer, we asked if we could come inside and take some photos.

In the last posting about Helvetica I mentioned the typeface Meta. Anyone interested in typography should become familiar with Erik Spiekermann, the person who designed Meta.

Spiekermann recently has rebranded his design firm as SpiekermannPartners. Here’s a great statement about their recent work for PC Professionell magazine: “Our task as designers was nevertheless to make the content look good and not show off with all sorts of graphic gadgets.”

Spiekermann’s blog, SpiekerBlog 2.0, is worth following for its nuggets of information such as this posting about the redesign of The Economist.

Another typography site has a brief interview with Spiekermann where he is asked the one thing that every student of typography should know: “That you are designing not the black marks on the page, but the space in between.”

Stop Stealing Sheep

Finally, if you want an introduction to typography then consider reading Spiekermann’s book Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works

Helvetica - everybody knows it.

Our friend Eric sent us an interesting link from the Toronto Star about the 50th anniversary of Helvetica, the official typeface of the 20th century.

Helvetica is getting a lot of attention for its 50th year. For those around New York a year long exhibition about Helvetica just opened at MoMA.

Helvetica the movie

There’s even Helvetica: a documentary film by Gary Hustwit. We want to see that but, unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be coming to Buenos Aires anytime soon. Meanwhile, there’s trailers and photos from the film on the Web site and even a blog about the Helvetica documentary. Now, that’s a good feature for a film site.

Helvetica the book

And there’s even a book about the font, Helvetica: Homage to a Typeface.

The International Herald Tribune also gets into the act with its own article about Helvetica.

All this attention would make Helvetica’s original designer Max Miedinger proud.

Over the years

But Helvetica today isn’t quite the same as it was 50 years ago. The typeface has been expanded and updated twice with Neue Helvetica in 1983 and Helvetica World in 2001.

Fonts Old & New

The Toronto Star article has some great quotes about other fonts that many people use everyday. The Helvetica imitator known as Arial is described by one designer as a “parasite.”

And anyone who ever uses Comic Sans (and there are a lot of people out there who do) should please take note: “Comic Sans, a typeface that bestows one’s writing with all the verve and elegance of Porky Pig.”

The Toronto Star rightly asks if Helvetica will survive another 50 years. Frutiger, produced by the same foundry (Linotype) as Helvetica, is mentioned as a leading competitor.

Yet, oddly, as I read about the popularity of Helvetica I find little mention of the Meta, which is the favorite font of many designers today. Meta is often even called “the Helvetica of the nineties” and the “successor to Helvetica.”

I’m a great fan of guidebooks. So, I recently decided to do some reading on the history of guidebooks.

The first guidebook in the U.S. was prepared by 29 year-old Gideon Minor Davison in 1822. The book covered the area around Saratoga Springs, New York, which was the hit tourist destination of the day. He titled his book, The Fashionable Tour. There’s the typical image that travel in the early 19th century was done mostly by the elite, the wealthy, those who had spare time on their hands. Yet, Davison was quite the opposite. He was a working man who printed the town’s newspaper, the Saratoga Sentinel.

Despite the subtitle of his book - A trip to the Springs, Niagara,
Quebeck, and Boston, in the Summer of 1821 - Davison was not much of a traveler. His aim, along with that of much of Saratoga’s citizenry, was to promote tourism in that area.

Saratoga Springs was becoming the most promoted destination for travel in North America and Davison aimed to capitalize on that interest with his inexpensive, pocket-sized guidebook.

As a printer Davison knew how to keep production costs at a minimum. Despite being a travel guide, the book contained no illustrations or maps. It took Davison a while to develop his bookselling sense. The first edition was sold mainly through his shop in Saratoga Springs.

Later, there would be many later editions of this book that in 1833 started to be published under the title Traveller’s Guide Through the Middle and Northern States. French editions even appeared in 1834 and 1839. These later editions contain maps and lithographed plates. The success of his guidebooks enabled Davison to build a significant fortune in Saratoga Springs.

For three years, from 1822 to 1825, Davison published the sole guidebook in the U.S. In future postings we’ll talk about some other guidebooks from the early 19th century.

Meanwhile, if you’re really interested in this topic a great read is
The First American Tourist Guidebooks: Authorship and the Print Culture of the 1820s by Richard Gassan, Book History - Volume 8, 2005, pp. 51-74.